"There's a myth that anyone who has a liver problem has brought it on themselves" This quote is from a Crohn's disease patient living with a blocked portal vein hoping for a liver transplant (Independent 31st Oct 2010)

Tuesday 13 September 2011

I shouldn't have had cancer

Three monthly check-up at Salford liver clinic yesterday. The spreadsheet of monthly blood tests over the previous 3 months looks optimistic - well MY copy does, as although both my GP and I forwarded our monthly copies to Dr Al nobody at Salford arranged to have the figures entered on his system. Monitoring will be reduced to 3-monthly. All now done at Salford. I'm sure this is an ok decision, but will be sorry to loose my easy access to results via the GP. Bet I never get sent copies from Salford. T suggested I ask my GP to do an intermediary set at 6 weeks, for my piece of mind. We just don't tell anyone else!

It seems I have become a bit of an oddity. Heppy doc asked if I would give my permission for his team to write up a publication on me. He explained that it's usually patients with a chronic active Hepatitis B virus that progress to cancer. My virus levels have been undetectable for at least 17 years, and he explained it's unusual for a liver cancer to develop that length of time after a virus has become inactive. Also it's not common for someone with autoimmune hepatitis to develop liver cancer.
So I asked "what caused the cancer then?"
"That's what we'd like to know" he said.
He gave me paperwork to authorise them (it will a joint paper by him, his registrar, O'Blimey and Dr Caravan) to publish within the stable of BMJ (British Medical Journal) publications.
By now I'm feeling self-important, and barely caught his mumble about it being 'most likely published in mumblemumble'.

"In where?"
"Gut" ..............
Yes, there is a journal called 'Gut'. Maybe it should become a guest publication on 'Have I Got News for You' alongside 'Drain trader'; 'Gas installer'; and 'World pumps'. All quite suitable digestive organ titles!
Ah well, that was the end of my 15 minutes of fame.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Fiona,
    It must be a bit frustrating to think that you pulled the short straw when it comes to getting this kind of cancer. I don't think doctors always know as much as they think. Let's hope you can beat the odds at beating this thing. You wouldn't want to break your track record, right:>
    xoxox Carla

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